EAST STROUDSBURG — They would have been the "Ghetto Diamonds." Three young girls living in the Normal Street housing project who started their own neighborhood singing group were expanding, and they sought out 12-year-old Mandie Coco.

They would have been called the Ghetto Diamonds. But that will never happen. Police found Coco's body lying next to her father's Wednesday afternoon at their Hill Street home, the victims of an apparent murder-suicide.

Past Article: Local troop is prepared to help Mandie Coco, Scout in need (April 4, 2006)

Stroud Area Regional Police officials said while they found the two Wednesday afternoon, they can't be sure yet how long Coco and her father, Christopher Coco, 41, had been dead. They only know that Mandie's school called Monroe County child welfare offices Wednesday because she hadn't showed up for school for two days.

"I called her five times yesterday, I went over to the house," her neighbor and friend, Nochalin Nova, 12, said. "We wanted her to get into the singing group with us. She never answered."

Now she knows why — but police are trying to figure out exactly what happened. So far, they believe Christopher Coco shot his daughter in the side of the head sometime in the last few days with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun registered to him. He then shot himself in the head.

Police visited the home once Wednesday morning around 8:30, but no one answered. Officers did not enter the home at the time but Capt. William Parrish of SARP said officers noticed something scary.

"There were flies at the windows," he said of the 453 Hill St. duplex. "That gave us reason to go in the home."

When they returned around 2:15 p.m. and went in the home, police smelled a stench that would suggest the bodies had been there for more than a day, Parrish said. When they went upstairs into Mandie's bedroom in the front of the home, they found both dead, with Mandie lying on her side and her father face-down. They were both lying on Mandie's bed, Parrish said.

As of Wednesday night, police were not expecting any other foul play to be involved. All the doors and windows of the home had been locked from the inside at the time of the shooting, Parrish said.

However, the investigation will continue.

"There's a lot of aspects to this we don't know yet," Parrish said, explaining that no neighbors seemed to have heard gunfire in the last few days.

The two had moved from another home in the housing project because a fire burned down their former townhouse at 451 Normal St. on Feb. 21, 2006.

A local Girl Scout group held a fundraiser for the family in April 2006.

Mandie had been a sixth-grader at J.T. Lambert Intermediate School, and was a good enough singer to be in J.T. Lambert's sixth-grade chorus for a time. She had recently transferred to a local KidsPeace campus.

The transfer didn't affect her friendships with her neighborhood friends. Nova, Kapri Fields, 12, and sister Kia Fields, 11, were set to ask Mandie to be in their singing group, KNK. They were even going to change the name to the Ghetto Diamonds rather than just adding another letter to the group.

They said their group of four were "best friends," and Christopher Coco usually seemed like a nice man. They said he took the group on trips to Big Wheel skating rink in Stroud Township and Wal-Mart in East Stroudsburg.

"She was a great singer," Kia Fields said. "We really wanted her in our group. She was a really good friend too. A normal girl."

Wednesday's tragedy was enough for next-door neighbor Margaret Lee to want out of the neighborhood.

"I'd been asking for a transfer from here for about three years," she said. "Now I'm hoping I get that transfer."

Some neighbors complained that Christopher Coco was too possessive of Mandie, and that he was worried of the people in the neighborhood. Some of the neighborhood kids even said Coco would throw rocks at the vandals if they were viewed near the home, and a few said they saw Christopher Coco with a gun, though no one ever saw him point it.

Parrish said there had been reports of vandalism in the area, and confirmed that at the time of his death, Coco had a video camera pointing out his window toward the street to record people there.

Lee, however, said she hadn't had a problem with the pair next to them.

"I never heard from them," she said. "They hadn't given anyone trouble for the last couple months."

Parrish said police are investigating whether they had been giving anyone trouble before that.

To post your tribute to Mandie Coco click here

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.